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Burning Alive in Myanmar: Two Resistance Fighters Executed in Public

February 8, 2024/in News

Warning: Graphic Content Two anti-junta fighters in their 20s were executed in public in a village in Magwe Region and a video of the crime, which occurred about three months ago, was uploaded to social media on Tuesday and is circulating there. They were burned alive after being hanged from a tree. The video, first […]

Myanmar resistance fighters burned alive stokes outrage

February 8, 2024/in News

Video shows the two young men hung from a tree, then set on fire as they cry out in pain. Two young men in shackles are interrogated by armed men. As villagers look on, the men are suspended from a tree and set on fire. Their screams are heard over the flames as a unified […]

Burning Alive in Myanmar: Two Resistance Fighters Executed in Public

February 8, 2024/in News

Myanmar resistance fighters burned alive stokes outrage

February 8, 2024/in News

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

Burning Alive in Myanmar: Two Resistance Fighters Executed in Public

February 8, 2024/in News

Warning: Graphic Content

Two anti-junta fighters in their 20s were executed in public in a village in Magwe Region and a video of the crime, which occurred about three months ago, was uploaded to social media on Tuesday and is circulating there.

They were burned alive after being hanged from a tree.

The video, first reported on by two local media outlets – and likely leaked to them – is narrated by a triumphant voice.

Resistance group Yaw Defense Force (YDF) said junta soldiers and allied Pyu Saw Htee militia members were responsible for the crime in Gangaw Township’s Myauk Khin Yan village.

The video circulating on social media shows the two men being forced to admit that they are members of a local People’s Defense Force. They are also forced to refer to themselves as “dogs” by the junta troops – some uniform others in civilian clothes – who, in the video, are seen standing around them. “Military dogs” is a term used by many civilians to refer to junta troops.

The video shows evidence that they were tortured before they were burned alive. They have severe injuries and are covered in blood. Their hands and legs are bound by iron chains as they are dragged to a tree.

Yaw Defense Force identified that the two men executed as Phoe Tay and Thar Htaung.

After being forced to refer to themselves as “dogs,” they are hanged from a tree. A liquid believed to be fuel is poured on them and then lit.

They were burned alive in front of an audience.

Every household in the village was told to send one member to witness the execution, YDF said. The Irrawaddy could not independently verify this account.

The video is narrated by a joyful voice celebrating the crime as a triumph.

The YDF identified the two men executed as Phoe Tay and Thar Htaung, saying they were YDF members who were arrested by junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee members during an operation in Myauk Khin Yan village on Nov. 7, 2023.

The village is controlled by Pyu Saw Htee militias, reportedly under the direction of “Bullet” Hla Swe, a former lawmaker of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. The militias are notorious for violence against civilians, including shelling into the village and others nearby. In March 2022, two civilians were tortured to death in the village.

Many residents of the village have fled due to the expansion of Pyu Saw Htee militias.

The YDF said the two men were “burned alive in public.” “Before that, they were repeatedly tortured,” it said.

The two young men were dragged toward a tree before being burned alive in public.

Many social-media users are reacting to the video with fury and sorrow. Instead of spreading fear, such inhumanity will only make the revolutionary spirit against dictatorship stronger, many wrote in response.

Others compare the junta’s brutal treatment of detainees with that of anti-regime resistance groups and ethnic armed groups who adhere to international laws governing the treatment of prisoners of war.

“The terrorist military has been committing inhumane terrorist acts since long ago. The only way to ensure that there are no more incidents like this is to root out the military regime and ensure the revolution succeeds,” the YDF said in a statement.

“We would like to urge all people not to be cold-blooded and to unite together until the revolution succeeds,” it said.

Irrawaddy News

Myanmar resistance fighters burned alive stokes outrage

February 8, 2024/in News

Video shows the two young men hung from a tree, then set on fire as they cry out in pain.

Two young men in shackles are interrogated by armed men. As villagers look on, the men are suspended from a tree and set on fire. Their screams are heard over the flames as a unified cheer goes up among observers.

Video footage of this atrocity has gone viral in Myanmar, fueling outrage in a nation already hardened to the depravity of war after three years of increasingly bloody conflict since the Feb. 1, 2021, military coup d’etat.

Sympathizers have circulated artwork on social media to pay tribute to the men who died, Phoe Tay, 23, and Thar Htaung, 22. The art includes symbolic images of two stars hanging from a tree under a campfire.

The video shows their deaths in graphic detail. They were captured Nov. 7, 2023, in fighting between pro-junta forces and resistance fighters at Myauk Khin Yan village in Magway region’s Gangaw township.

According to a local official from the administration of the shadow National Unity Government, the video was taken by a villager who fled the area on Dec. 12 and Dec. 13. It’s unclear who first posted the video that began circulating widely this week.

The two young men were members of the local Yaw Defense Force that attacked positions held by junta troops at Myauk Khin Yan and then retreated when reinforcements from the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia arrived, according to the YDF. The two young men were left behind after they both sustained leg wounds.

The YDF said every household in Myauk Khin Yan was told to send one person to witness the executions.

The video starts with the two young men being questioned by armed, uniformed soldiers while shackled at the legs and their hands tied behind their backs.

The video then shows them dragged in chains to a nearby tree where they are hung as a fire is set just underneath. A crowd of people in civilian clothes can be seen in the background. Sporadic laughter from people apparently located closer to the violence can can be heard in the video.

Local sources, who declined to be name for safety reasons, said Phoe Tay was a first year university student and Thar Htaung was enrolled at a secondary school. Both were apparently enrolled in the resistance force.

Radio Free Asia spoke to the father of Phoe Tay. The father, Myint Zaw, already knew of his son’s death but has not seen the video – partly because he lacks adequate internet access in his village. He voiced horror and anger.

“Yes, it is Po Tay, my son,” Myint Zaw said. “He is gone. His life as a human is over. At that time, they were tortured. There was blood on the head. I didn’t witness it, but I learned that he was beaten on the head, beaten on the knees.”

“We could not retrieve the body. Nobody could go there because Myauk Khin Yan is the stronghold village of Pyu Saw Htee [pro-junta militia],” he said.

Myint Zaw said of the video: “I haven’t watched it. But there are reports about it, and many people are talking about it.”

“His friends in the village are horrified by it,” he said. “People are deeply hurt. They cannot accept such an act.”

Online outrage

Since the coup three years ago, reports of torture, beheadings and burning of corpses by junta forces have become commonplace, but the graphic nature of the Nov. 7 video has triggered a wave of revulsion in Myanmar and beyond – and sympathy for the dead.

Hundreds of people have commented on Facebook and others have posted online images and memes that feature the two young men.

“I could no longer watch that video. How merciless they were,” said Facebook user Ko Zaw, who lists himself as a resident of Kuala Lumpur. “May you two avoid such a fate in your next lives. Please have compassion with each other, Myanmar citizens.”

ENG_BUR_MagwayDeaths_02072024.2.jpg — Burmese social media has seen an outpouring of AI-generated art tributes to Phoe Tay and Thar Htaung after the nature of their deaths became public. (Clockwise from top left: AIMasterPieces, Christine Ang, ChanHlong, Hein Htut Aung, Crd-AungYeWin and UKhaing)

Among the social media artwork are images depicting two stars hanging from a tree, a phoenix rising from the ashes and two young men looking down into a cloud-covered valley.

“Whenever I check my phone, I see your faces, brothers,” said Facebook user and Bangkok resident Thein Lin Aung, who added that the amount of graphic photos and videos being reposted was bordering on the reckless.

“Even those without any blood relationship feel such a heavy pain,” he wrote. “Please think about their parents, families and relatives.”

‘Justice must be sought’

RFA’s calls this week to junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the video went unanswered.

But the junta-appointed Information Ministry claimed in a statement on Wednesday that the video was fabricated by militia groups and the two young men were killed by a rival People’s Defense Force.

“The illegal subversive media is only circulating fake news at the right time to mislead the public and the international community that the security forces are carrying out such inhumane and brutal acts of terrorism, which are being committed by the terrorists from the so-called PDFs,” the ministry said.

NUG spokesperson Nay Phone Latt told RFA that the NUG’s Ministry of Home Affairs has started building a case against the alleged perpetrators.

However, several sources told RFA that village residents have expressed their fear of identifying the culprits. After the killings, nearly 200 people fled the village because they felt threatened by Pyu Saw Htee militia members, local people said.

Gangaw township includes a significant number of supporters for the military junta and members of the Pyu Saw Htee militia, which the military has supplied with weapons and provided with training.

Aung Myo Min, the human rights minister for NUG, noted that some of the perpetrators in the video weren’t wearing a military uniform. He described the killings as “an act of evil which no human can accept … Justice must be sought for it.”

Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch’s deputy director for Asia, said: “There are really unknown words in humanity for the persons who did this.”

“These two men should have been handed over to the proper authority for investigation, not to be burned alive while the camera was rolling in order to produce a film intended to intimidate others,” he said.

RFA News

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ND Burma

ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.

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